Vineyard Update!
Not long now until the shortest day of the year or the longest night depends how you look at it! Many locals are either heading to northern states to enjoy a warmer winter or eagerly awaiting the return of Hobart’s busy winter events calendar. While Hobart prepares for the onslaught of Dark Mofo we Vignerons are busy doing the necessary work to set the vineyard up for 2022.
Now that we have moved into the colder, darker days of winter, vintage is but a memory with all our barrels safely ‘tucked away’ in the cellar. Our vineyard crew has commenced the mammoth task of pruning across our Derwent and Huon Valley sites. An absolute crucial step in producing layered, vibrant wines. Pruning of our 37.5 hectares is by hand and is as labour intensive as you might imagine, as with previous years ‘all hands on deck’ are required to complete this task by Spring.
With vintage completed and pruning under way we also have a batch of homemade compost fermenting. All green waste from the winery, vineyard and larder (when not being fed to our chooks) is used in our compost. Once finished and rested, the brew will be broadcast throughout the vineyard, garden & orchard at the end of winter/early spring to give our vines, vegetables and fruit trees the nitrogen & nutrients to push them on their way to vintage 2022.
We sowed Tic beans in the vineyard just before April’s full moon and they are now breaking through the soil. The native Hens are feasting on the tender green shoots. However cute they are, we're not very happy about them greedily consuming our cover crop. To gently persuade them to stop we’re erecting a fence to keep them out. FYI native hens are commonplace throughout Tasmania, sometimes known as turbo chooks as they are very fast to escape upon approach and look like a prehistoric chicken.
As with previous years our cellar door and larder will remain open for the winter months and we will once again be showing our biodynamic wines at the Winter Feast. If you are in Hobart during the Dark Mofo period, do drop by our stall (adjacent to the heavy metal kitchen) and taste some wine, we would love to meet you all.
Our award winning 2018 biodynamic Estate Chardonnay has now sold out apart from a limited number of Magnums available. Purchase through our website if you want to enjoy the taste of the ‘incomparable’ 2018 Estate Chardonnay, recently named the top wine and trophy winner at the 2020 Australian Organic wine show. We are equally happy with our 2019 Estate Chardonnay and expect it will showcase the exceptional depth achievable in Southern Tasmania.
On release the 2019 Estate Chardonnay shows restraint but will express more of the lemon cream, biscuity, mealy flavours and stone fruit layers as it ages in the bottle. Enjoy this wine now, however we recommend to decant for an hour or so at room temperature to reduce this wine’s shyness (longevity) and encourage its shape to bloom adding texture and lifting the aroma to the ether.